T.D. Jakes: God Responds When We Share Our Needs

T.D. Jakes shares a powerful word on presenting our needs to God so that He can pour out His grace and provide blessing after blessing!

I pray that you will experienced God’s strength and presence in a
whole new way this month. That you will conquer your battles, achieve your goals and find joy in the simplest of things. Amen.

If you don’t want anything, you won’t get anything. If you don’t need anything, you won’t receive anything.
Do you not know that the real star of the story with the two fish and the five loaves of bread is not the little boy and it’s not the lunch.
It was the hunger that Lord when the, when they came to Jesus and they said, the people that are with you are hungry.
He said, oh good, that’s capacity.
Wherever I see capacity, I’m really surprised I’m gonna, I’m gonna read more passage than I normally do.
Uh I want you to go to Philippians 4 15 to 19.
And I’m also gonna consider first king 17, 13 to 17.
The Lord has me on a, an unusual course tonight, but I feel a prophetic undertone to the direction that the Lord has brought me in.
I don’t promise you a shout because that’s not the objective of my preaching.
Not at this stage. I do promise you a word from God.
And I have the feeling that the message God gave me is in response to where you are at in life and something you have been asking him for.
Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is almost as if I feel like I’m responding to something that I didn’t even hear but something you said to him, he will respond now through me, he that have an ear.
Let him hear what the spirit of the Lord is saying to the church.
You don’t come this far to get your dance in.
You could have got your dance in at home.
When you come this far, you come for a shift going into a whole different orbit and a completely different dimension.
Are you ready? You don’t have time to worry about whether you’re Baptist Methodist Presbyterian Church of God, church of God in Christ, church of God and prophecies, Church of God.
Got it going on in Jesus name by faith, incorporated Saints of God and France.
You don’t have time to worry about whether you’re Democrat or Republican.
You don’t have time to worry about whether you’re white or black or Hispanic or African or Australia.
We don’t have time to worry about any of that because where God wants to put something is so deep down in your spirit that you, you, you, you wanna leave this meeting, carrying more baggage than what you can check in at the counter.
You wanna go home, loaded down with keys that are gonna open up things that have been shut down in you for years.
Are you getting what I’m saying? Leap up on your feet and let’s go into the word of God.
We stand for the reading of the word of God in here in first kings.
I want you to know this 1st 17 to 13 to 17.
I’m gonna start there first and then I’ll go back, I’ll backtrack and go. Philippians.
I’m gonna lay uh my early foundation in uh first kings, 17, 13 to 17.
Then we’re gonna go to Philippians and Elijah said unto her fear, not go and do as thou has said.
But make me there a little cake first and bring it on to me.
And after make for the and for thou son, for the sae the Lord God to be the barrel of meal shall not waste.
Neither shall the crews of oil fail until the day that the Lord send rain upon the earth.
It won’t stop until it rains again.
And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah and she and he and her house did eat many days.
What’s this? And the barrel of mil wasted.
Not, neither did the crews of oil fail according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Elijah.
And it came to pass after these things that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house fell sick and his sickness was so sore that there was no breath left in him.
Now leave a little notepad, a card, a finger.
If you’re still using Bibles, I know most of y’all got uh ipads now but leave some kind of notation there.
And we’re going, we’re going, we’re going to the New Testament to hear a very unique phrase from the Apostle Paul in Philippians chapter four verse 15 to 9.
Now you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving.
But ye only, you’re the only ones who communicated or ministered unto me for even in the ye said once and again, unto my necessity.
Somebody say necessity, not because I desire a gift. You didn’t send it because I desire it.
But I desire fruit that may abound to your account.
Hey, but I have all and abound. I am full.
Having received of Aphroditus, the things which were sent from you, an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice.
Acceptable. Well, pleasing to God.
But my God shell supply all of your need.
What will he supply all of your uh-huh according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Now that’s, that’s where I’m gonna really expand.
My God shall supply all of your need according to it.
Yeah, you heard it, didn’t you don’t, you get ahead of me like that.
My God shall supply all of your uh-huh. They minister to His necessity.
My God shall supply all of your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Now, this scripture in its context is in reference to giving and needs being met for the Apostle Paul in the middle of his ministry.
For the purpose of our understanding tonight, let us not just compartmentalize need to money because it is possible to have needs in other areas.
And sometimes money gets such a center stage as it relates to need because we have come through such struggle historically that it is almost a given that there is a financial need And if you do have a need, my God shall supply.
But the reality is some of the things that that is slowing you down, hindering you are needs in another area.
The need for support, the need for validation, the need for love, the need for companionship, the need for connectivity, the need for staffing for your business, the need for a building for your vision, the the need, see, see it, it wasn’t that they were just handing out duets all the time.
If you’re hungry, the need might be bread. If you’re thirsty, it might be water.
If you’re lonely, it might be help. But whatever your need is, you have to fill that in.
Because the Lord told me to tell you, he is the master of your need.
He is the master of your need. Your need has not shocked him.
It has not embarrassed him. It has not intimidated him.
In fact, he is in control.
Not only of what he supplies, but he has control of of your need.
You even say he’s a master of my knee.
Now, let’s pray over the word, sanctify it down in our hearts and in our spirits and causes us to understand more abundantly.
Lord. Uh what you would speak tonight. I know what you downloaded into me.
Let let it be released in this place in a coherent, effective way that it, that it gives illumination and light and understanding.
I feel as though that I’m about to feed a feeder.
I’m about to feed a feeder.
A a as I release what is in my spirit tonight?
Somebody’s gonna take it and do like the body does with food.
They’re gonna convert it into so many nutritious elements that are going to minister to them.
It’s gonna go in a sermon.
It’s gonna come out a building, it’s gonna go in a sermon.
It’s gonna come out a husband, it’s gonna go in, y’all are not ready for this.
It’s gonna go in a sermon. It’s gonna come out a degree. It’s gonna go in a sermon.
It’s gonna come out property. It’s gonna go in the word that I speak to you right now.
Your spirit is gonna take it just like your body does food and it’s gonna convert it into the thing you need for what is about to happen next in your life.
If you can understand what I just said. Praise him on credit just back.
You may be seated, you may be seated I was having lunch with some close friends and people I’ve known for a number of years and we were reminiscing about years ago when we were uh in a little storefront back in Montgomery, West Virginia.
And uh Bishop Watkins was uh coming down to minister and, and uh and I needed, he had so many members.
He brought four or five bus loads, about 20 cars down. I had about 30 members.
And um I ended up going to the high school.
I think there in Montgomery and renting the auditorium at the high school to hold the crowd because my church which would seat about 100 and 20 people wouldn’t hold the crowd.
And I talk to myself how that aligned with a conversation I had had with God.
I said, God, I am the same man and the same preacher with the same anointing that I had back then.
Why didn’t you give me American Airlines back then? I’m the same guy.
I was younger. I was stronger. I was hungry.
Why, why do you take us through stages of development?
Why, why do you let us exercise in the gymnasium of small beginnings and go from 30 to 60 to 100 fold?
Because sometimes we can get stuck at a stage and never evolve to the capacity that we need to evolve to receive what we need to receive.
And as I begin to talk to the Lord about it, he said, you see I supply lead.
It been amazing how you can come to church with somebody and you can really get blessed and the person you brought with you got nothing.
Have you ever rode home from church with somebody who got nothing?
And you were really, really blessed and they got in the car talking about who was cute and who was fine and who had gained weight?
And why did she wear those shoes with that dress?
And, and you’re going crazy because you’re having a spiritual moment with the Lord and they seemingly got nothing.
How could there be so much supply of glory and they be oblivious to it?
Have you ever recognized that everybody doesn’t have the same capacity that they could be exposed to great things and not have an appetite for them.
That’s why you, you don’t need, you need to evolve from needing to do a census before you evolve.
That is to say you don’t need everybody on your road to line up with you for you to receive what you need from God.
You don’t need a reaction from other people to validate what you need from God because there can come a release on such a level that if you don’t have the capacity to receive it, you might not even know it happened.
My God.
In our text, Paul says I needed something and you came and ministered unto my necessity when other churches didn’t unto my necessity.
When other churches did it. I thought this is the apostle Paul, this is the apostle.
This is the guy. Let me explain to you, this is the guy who was the Saddam Hussein of the early church who kill Christians for a nipping.
And yet God had such a plan for his life, in spite of all the people he had slaughtered and murdered and destroyed.
And some suggest that he even held the coat early on in his life while people stone stepping, he has a history of being a Christian killer and yet God touches him and converts him for the master’s use.
How could God use somebody so filthy, so nasty, so hateful.
He basically called the terrorists and put him on a street, call straight and delivered him and turned him around and filled him up with the Holy Spirit and sent him out to do amazing things.
Not because he was pure, not because he was holy, not because he was righteous, not because he had a wonderful past, not because he had not made horrendous mistakes, but, but even in his past life, he was a big guy who didn’t big things in a big way.
When he hated Christians, he wasn’t too face about it. He said I’m going to kill him.
As soon as I get down to Jerusalem, I’m going to destroy him.
He was and God chose boldness over righteousness, over purity because he, he, he had the ability to function on a certain level and God used him.
Now, you must understand that much of our New Testament theology is a result of the apostle Paul.
There would be no understanding.
Yes, Jesus died and shed the blood, shed his blood rose from the dead and birthed the church.
But the church that Jesus birth was an organism with no organization.
There was no structure, there was no order, there were no apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers and evangelists.
Paul gives us all of that.
Paul begins to teach us and make us us understand there’s phenomenal condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk no longer after the flesh.
But after the spirit, Paul begins to tell us that if this earthly house or Tabernacle should be dissolved, we have another building eternal in the heavens which is made of God.
Paul teaches us it is it Him that we live in Him that we move in Him that we have our being.
It is the apostle Paul that makes us understand therefore, having peace with God that we are reconciled with Him.
We understand peace of God, peace with God, peace in God, all because of the apostle Paul.
Without the Apostle Paul, we would not have a clear understanding that the door to the gentiles had been open, that they might be saved and said free Paul preach with so much power that a man died while he was preaching.
Paul ran down the steps raised him from the dead and kept right on.
Peaching Paul was so awesome that they tried to kill him. They couldn’t kill him.
They tried to beat him to death. They left him from dead.
He got up and shook himself and walked away. He was in ship wrecks but he survived.
He was snake bit but he shook it off. Oh, y’all don’t hear what I’m saying.
That raised people from the dead withstood ship wrecks and shook off snakes.
Why are you needing anything?
If you can raise people from the dead, you can pay your water bill?
Paul says the truth of the matter is I am full lacking nothing but so that you might have credit to your account.
God created a need to test you to minister to that need.
This is weird in other words saying I needed something but I didn’t, I was in trouble but I wasn’t.
It’s kind of strange.
This is the same guy that said I have learned how to a base and a bound both to be full and to be in law.
He says he, he said even when you’re in trouble, you’re not in trouble.
Now, I need to preach this to somebody who’s got some faith in them.
Even when you’re in trouble, you are not in trouble that God allows certain necessities to come.
Either to create a backdrop for you to experience another dimension of His glory or for the people around you to have an opportunity to flow into another dimension of his grace.
Now, back in the early days, Dr jazz when I was preaching, I would, I would, I would say something real hot and jazzy uh as a subject, I would do something like, tell you to touch your neighbor and say it’s a set up, so touch your neighbor and tell them it’s a set up.
They, they, they, they, they, they, they don’t understand exactly what I’m saying yet because I’m not totally through unloading it yet.
And when I unload it, everybody’s not even gonna get it because some people are so shocked by the situation and they’ve been praying so hard about the situation.
They’ve been so focused on the circumstance.
They’ve been so distracted by what they’re going through that they don’t understand that everything you have been going through and every area you’ve been up under attack and every area that you have a necessity, your necessity is not a necessity.
It is in fact a opportunity for you to experience another dimension of God’s glory to the 10 people who understand it.
Touch 10 people say it’s a set up is training wheels for your faith is training will for your faith.
It is the passage of entry into the next dimension.
It is the Bar Mitzvah for the sons of God to have matured enough to carry the weight.
Why did you give me this back then? I couldn’t handle it back then?
And why would he give me all of these thousands of seats when I didn’t need them?
Why would God give me something that I didn’t need?
So is the embryo of my success, the supply or the need?
The only thing that makes an answer important is the question, the profundity of the question is built, the profundity of the answer is built on the profundity and the power of the question.
Why would I answer?
What you didn’t ask if God says the trigger point of my supply is your need.
No wonder He hates a proud look because a proud look will never admit me.
I know I knocked out about 10 rows with that.
I killed about 10 people with that. Why? Why does God hate a proud look above everything else above?
I mean, murderers and lying and backbiting everything God said. He hate, not only does he hate pride.
He hates a proud look. You don’t even have to be proud.
He said, if you sit there and act like you’re important, I hate the fact that you have got your legs crossed acting like you’re important because proud people will never at me.
Why would you have a savior if you won’t admit that you’re drowning, why would you have a miracle worker if you won’t admit that you have a need?
No wonder some people get anointed while some people are just tired.
If God suppressors to need, if you don’t need anything.
You won’t all the needy people clap your hands.
God says, let me see.
I got, I got fish. I got stars. I got water. I got sunshine.
I got oak trees. I got pineapple trees.
I got all of the stuff that I wanna give, but I cannot give it until there’s a need.
So he forms the earth when he forms it, it creates a void, void, its capacity and he responds to the capacity of what is formed.
He said, I create capacity in the ocean so I can put fish in it.
I created capacity in the earth.
So I could sow seed into it.
I created capacity in the heavens so I could throw stars at it and birds at it.
Now you got something to fly in. I couldn’t release the answer until I formed.
All right. All right. All right.
He formed the earth and feels it.
He forms the ocean and fills it with fish.
He forms the air and fills it with birds. Everything God forms. He feels.
He formed the Tabernacle and filled it with furniture.
He formed the holy of Holies and then filled it with glory.
In fact, he formed man and it was here which came first the man or the breath God had the breath.
But until there was capacity, he couldn’t feel anything until you admit.
Oh, y’all don’t hear it here. Response to capacity.
He said, you’ll go down and show me what you see in the valley.
I see dry bones in the valley. He said, can these bones live again?
Lord without no speak to the bones that they might live.
So I prophesized as I was commanding, suddenly there was a noise and there was a shake in the bone came together, bone to his bone and they came together bone to his bone and sins came upon them.
And then he said prophesy to the wind because now I can feel what I form because God responds to capacity.
If you don’t want anything, you won’t get anything. If you don’t need anything, you won’t receive anything.
Do you not know that the real star of the story with the two fish and the fact five loaves of bread is not the little boy and it’s not the lunch.
It was the hunger that moved the Lord when the, when they came to Jesus and they said the people that are with you are hungry.
He said, oh good, that’s capacity.
Wherever I see capacity, I will release a ply all the people that’s got capacity to hollow, right?
They said, Lord, you got 5000 hungry people.
What do you have? He said, we don’t have nothing but the little boy’s lunch.
He said I can work with anything. If they’re hungry, I can work with anything.
If there’s a need, I can work with anything. If they’re thirsty, I can work with anything.
Just give me the little bit. You got it.
I know it’s not much because the star is not what’s in the bag.
The star is the aching in the belly of the people. God respect to hunger.
The the Bible said that when Jesus after John, the Baptist was beheaded, it said when Jesus saw the people and they were hurt, he was moved with compassion and healed them.
What I’m trying to tell you your need to act like you don’t need anything is stopping the flow of the miracle working power of God in your life.
If you would shake your little cute dress down and say, Lord, I’m hungry.
See that hungers and best not the righteousness shall be killed.